SB1060 - 542R

Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Arizona:

Section 1. Section 15-774, Arizona Revised Statutes, is amended to read:

START_STATUTE15-774. Extraordinary special education needs fund; claim application; criteria; revisions; policies and procedures; annual report

A. The extraordinary special education needs fund is established consisting of legislative appropriations, gifts, grants and donations. Monies in the fund are subject to legislative appropriation continuously appropriated and are exempt from the provisions of section 35‑190 relating to lapsing of appropriations. The state board department of education shall administer the fund. The department may retain up to two percent of the monies in the fund for the purposes of administering the fund.

B. The department of education shall award monies from the fund to school districts and charter schools with eligible claims. A school district or charter school is eligible to receive monies from the fund if the school district or charter school demonstrates to the department that a pupil receiving special education services has incurred costs in the current year of at least the statewide per pupil funding average multiplied by three.

B. C. A school district or charter school may apply to the state board department of education for an extraordinary special education needs grant claim from the fund. The state board department of education shall prescribe the format of the applications. The applications application, which shall include do all of the following:

1. Demonstration of Demonstrate extraordinary needs, including a description describing and documentation of documenting pupil services required and evidence showing that the district or charter school is not able to absorb the costs of these services.

2. Evidence that monies from the fund will not supplant federal, local or other state efforts.

2. Demonstrate total costs incurred in the current year by the pupil for whom the school district or charter school is applying. A school district or charter school may submit a claim for up to the full fiscal year if the expense incurred at the time of filing will continue to be incurred in subsequent quarters until the end of the same fiscal year. Total costs submitted shall be itemized and attributable to the pupil for whom the claim is being submitted. A school district or charter school may submit a claim for expenses incurred as a result of an independent educational evaluation.

3. Evidence that before making an application applying for monies from the fund the school district or charter school has made sufficient efforts to seek but has not received funding to cover the costs of extraordinary costs needs applied for pursuant to paragraph 1 of this subsection from all other sources, including federal and other state sources of funding.

C. Extraordinary special education needs grants shall be used in the current year. All unspent grant monies shall be returned to the department of education at the end of the fiscal year for deposit, pursuant to sections 35‑146 and 35‑147, in the extraordinary special education needs fund.

D. The department of education shall evaluate claim requests on a quarterly basis. If there are insufficient monies in the fund to fund all eligible claims within a given quarter, the department shall prioritize funding based on the difference in the claim amount submitted by a school district or charter school and the total funding the school district or charter school has received for that student. If a school district or charter school submits a claim with insufficient information, the department may notify the school district or charter school to revise its claim within two weeks.

E. If a school district or charter school incurs an additional expense for a student who received funding for a claim from the fund in the same fiscal year, the school district or charter school may revise the claim and may receive funding at the end of the quarter in which the claim is submitted, subject to available monies in the fund. The department shall prioritize revisions in the same manner as other claims pursuant to subsection D of this section.

F. The department of education shall annually adopt policies and procedures for the fund and post the policies and procedures on the department's website. The policies and procedures must include the average statewide per pupil funding amount for that fiscal year that will be used in the calculation prescribed in subsection B of this section.

G. On or before December 15 of each year, the department of education shall submit a report that outlines all of the following to the governor, the president of the senate, the speaker of the house of representatives and the joint legislative budget committee and provide a copy of this report to the secretary of state:

1. The number of extraordinary special education needs claims that were funded in the previous year.

2. How school districts and charter schools used claim monies.

3. The total number of claims received in the previous year. END_STATUTE

Sec. 2. Section 15-943, Arizona Revised Statutes, is amended to read:

START_STATUTE15-943. Base support level

The base support level for each school district shall be computed as follows:

1. The following support level weights shall be used in paragraph 2, subdivision (a) of this section for the following school districts:

(a) For school districts whose student count in kindergarten programs and grades one through eight is classified in column 1 of this subdivision, the support level weight for kindergarten programs and grades one through eight is the corresponding support level weight prescribed in column 2 or 3 of this subdivision, whichever is appropriate:

Column 1 Column 2 Column 3

Support Level Weight Support Level Weight

For Small Isolated For Small

Student Count School Districts School Districts

1-99 1.559 1.399

100-499 1.358 + [0.0005 x (500 1.278 + [0.0003 x (500

- student count)] - student count)]

500-599 1.158 + [0.002 x (600 1.158 + [0.0012 x (600

- student count)] - student count)]

(b) For school districts whose student count in grades nine through twelve is classified in column 1 of this subdivision, the support level weight for grades nine through twelve is the corresponding support level weight prescribed in column 2 or 3 of this subdivision, whichever is appropriate:

Column 1 Column 2 Column 3

Support Level Weight Support Level Weight

For Small Isolated For Small

Student Count School Districts School Districts

1-99 1.669 1.559

100-499 1.468 + [0.0005 x (500 1.398 + [0.0004 x (500

- student count)] – student count)]

500-599 1.268 + [0.002 x (600 1.268 + [0.0013 x (600

- student count)] – student count)]

2. Subject to paragraph 1 of this section, determine the weighted student count as follows:

(a)

Support Weighted

Level Student Student

Grade Base Group A Weight Count Count

PSD 1.000 + 0.450 = 1.450 x =

K-8 1.000 + 0.158 = 1.158 x =

9-12 1.163 + 0.105 = 1.268 x =

Subtotal A

(b)

Support Weighted

Funding Level Student Student

Category Weight Count Count

HI 4.771 x =

K-3 0.060 x =

K-3 reading 0.040 x =

ELL 0.115 x _______ = ____________

MD-R, A-R and

SID‑R 6.024 x ________ = ____________

MD-SC, A-SC and

SID-SC 5.833 x =

6.024

MD-SSI 7.947 x =

OI-R 3.158 x =

OI-SC 6.773 x =

P-SD 3.595 x _______ = ____________

DD, ED, MIID, SLD,

SLI and OHI 0.003 x ________ = ____________

0.114

ED-P 4.822 x _ =

MOID 4.421 x ________ = ____________

VI 4.806 x _ =

Subtotal B

3. Multiply the total determined in paragraph 2 of this section by the base level.

4. Multiply the teacher experience index of the district or 1.00, whichever is greater, by the product obtained in paragraph 3 of this section.

5. For the purposes of this section, the student count is the average daily membership as prescribed in section 15‑901 for the current year, except that for the purposes of computing the base support level used in determining school district rollover allocations and school district budget override amounts, the student count is the average daily membership as prescribed in section 15‑901 for the prior year. END_STATUTE

Sec. 3. Appropriation; extraordinary special education needs fund

The sum of $5,000,000 is appropriated from the state general fund in fiscal year 2020‑2021 to the extraordinary special education needs fund established by section 15‑774, Arizona Revised Statutes, as amended by this act.